Yü Yen Tzu Erh Chi: A Progressive Course Designed to Assist the Student of Colloquial Chinese as Spoken in the Capital and the M
Wase, Thomas Francis and Walter Caine Hillier.
4to. Vol. 1: xxviii, 349 pp. + Errata. Vol. 2: 523 pp. Green cloth wrapped boards with decorative Oriental motif in black on front cover. Gold lettering in Chinese on front covers, gold lettering in English on spines. Thick brown decorative endpapers. The author, Sir Thomas Francis Wade, (1818 - 1895 also known by his Chinese name Wei Tuoma) was a London-born British diplomat and sinologist who produced the “Peking Syllabary,” which was a guide to Mandarin pronunciation that was later amended, extended and converted into the Wade-Giles Romanization for Mandarin Chinese by Herbert Giles. On receiving his commission as lieutenant in 1841 he landed in Hong Kong in June 1842. The scene of the First Opium War had at that time been transferred to the Yangtze River, and thither Wade was ordered with his regiment. There he took part in the attack on Zhenjiang and in the advance on Nanking. In 1845, he was appointed interpreter in Cantonese to the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, and in 1846 assistant Chinese secretary to the superintendent of trade, Sir John Francis Davis and in 1852 he was appointed vice-consul at Shanghai. On the declaration of the second Chinese War in 1857, he was attached to Lord Elgin's staff as Chinese secretary, and with the assistance of H. N. Ley he conducted the negotiations which led up to the treaty of Tientsin in 1858. In the following year he accompanied Sir Frederick Bruce in his attempt to exchange the ratification of the treaty, and was present at Taku when the force attending the mission was treacherously attacked and driven back from the Peiho. On Lord Elgin's return to China in 1860 he resumed his former post of Chinese secretary, and was mainly instrumental in arranging for the advance of the special envoys and the British and French forces to Tientsin, and subsequently towards Peking. For the purpose of arranging for a camping ground in the neighborhood of Tungchow he accompanied Harry Parkes on his first visit to that city, where on the next day Parkes with Loch and others was taken prisoner. In the succeeding negotiations Wade took a leading part, and on the establishment of the legation at Peking he took up the post of Chinese secretary of legation. In 1862 he was made a Companion of the Bath. After retiring from working over in the British embassies in China, he returned to England in and donated 4,304 volumes of Chinese literature to the Cambridge University Library's Oriental Collection. He was elected to be the first professor the Chinese language in Cambridge University in 1888, a position he kept until his death. Books are in Mandarin and English. Staining, scuffing and age wear to boards. Bottom inch missing from spine of first volume. Backstrip of 2nd volume is missing. Front board of 2nd volume detached but present. Age wear to top page edge of books. Signature of former owner on front endpapers. Exterior in overall fair, interior in very good condition.
Edition: Second edition
Book ID: 19385
Price: $1,250.00